Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Smoothie for lunch

I had a smoothie for lunch. The last spoonfuls of ice masquerading as yoghurty sludge stuck to the bottom of the lime green polystyrene cup. On the bus I made awkward sucking noises, the ones that make everyone want to turn and look at you. No one did of course, that would draw attention to them, and I was the current social scapegoat.

When I got home the icy sludge was still jammed to the bottom of the cup. I thought, I could drop the whole cup in the bin, and the sludge would go with it, all the way to the tip, in the non-biodegradable lime green cup and it might never melt. What is the half-life of Boost Juice, I wondered? I made a mental comparison to uranium and thorium, estimating it would last a few years longer given the empirical evidence so far gathered.

Impatient, I took the lid off . It was one of those ones with the bubbles you can impress to indicate whether you're drinking low cal or not – an irrelevancy at this point. I banged on the bottom of the cup, taking a gamble, holding the upturned cup over my mouth.

The cup was wider than I'd estimated and the gamble quickly became failure. I watched the icy sludge fall from the bottom of the cup onto my mouth and face; some into my throat, some onto my shirt. The smoothie was done with, sequestered in private; my pride in tact.